About this project

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Field Visits for Bradley Manning is a travelogue based on the places where Manning was detained. It takes place in Kuwait, Virginia, Kansas, and Maryland.

Despite the title, Field Visits is not a straight-up documentary about Bradley Manning. Instead, the video explores the peripheral histories and landscapes of the surrounding areas. The case of Manning and the fight for open information become one tile in a larger mosaic of an internet impatient to assume the world.

The essay video covers a range of topics, such as the history of fingerprinting, the buffalo soldier, Dilmunite and Greek settlements in the Gulf, a geological formation called tar-crete, the National Cryptographic Museum, and the life of a village surrounded by a military installation.

Keep scrolling to watch the first two videos and check out pictures of the swag.

On Bradley Manning

In May 2010, Bradley Manning was arrested and detained at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, on suspicion of releasing classified military documents to Wikileaks, thereby indirectly aiding an enemy. Two months later, he was moved to Quantico, Virginia, “crossroads of the Marine corps” and home of the FBI training academy.

In the words of UN torture expert, Juan Mendez, “Manning was subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in the excessive and prolonged isolation” during his nine months at Quantico.

Though the last four years have seen more cases against whistle-blowers than ever before, Bradley Manning’s case is unique, not only because he was tortured, but because the case may set precedents for future cases of indirectly aiding an enemy by posting, publishing, or sharing information that may or may not be seen by confirmed or unconfirmed enemies of the state.

The chilling of free speech pervades even the most pedestrian levels of government. During production for Views of a Former Verizon Building the NYPD forbid filming the Brooklyn Bridge from Gold Street. An officer said the landmark cannot be filmed because it may be seen by “the wrong people.”

Small erosions such as this, and larger ones like the corporate-government crackdown of Occupy Wall Street, the persecution of activist Aaron Swartz, and the continuing grand jury of Wikileaks show to what levels the cancer of paranoia has spread.

Other Ways You Can Help

An easy way to get involved is to like the project on Facebook and to share with your friends on Twitter or email.

I'm also still in the research phase. So if you know someone from one of the locations who might be interested in helping, let me know. I'll be looking for places to crash, cars to borrow, and interesting sites to visit.

And finally, I'm always looking for places to screen one or all three videos.

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A Tour of the AC-1 Transatlantic Submarine Cable

For A Tour of the AC-1 Transatlantic Submarine Cable I followed a telecom cable
loop that connects the US, the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany. Through
historical, political, and cultural digressions, A Tour situates the locus of the
internet as existing between two disparate sites: the spectator’s screen and the
physical infrastructure.

Views of a Former Verizon Building

Views of a Former Verizon Building focuses on a downtown Manhattan data
center. Possibly the most public places in the world, with social interactions
flowing through them at rates not possible in non-digital life, data centers
themselves are privately owned, highly secure panopticons. The video follows
the trail of the data center as it takes root throughout the district of Civic
Center, in a proliferation of checkpoints and cameras.